BillS IIS Blog : Tutorial

Now Online: Comprehensive IIS7 Technical Reference

bills — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 06:33:50 GMT

If you’ve ever tried to find information on how to install a particular IIS7 feature, or how to configure it using the IIS Manager tool, AppCmd.exe, the new Microsoft.Web.Administration interface or WMI provider, this post is for you.

Every IIS7 feature is now comprehensively documented on http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/

This IIS7 Technical Reference provides a list of all the built-in IIS7 features, alphabetized for quick access. If you know the configuration name you are interested in, just type it into the URL…for example if you’re looking for information on the system.webServer <caching> setting, type: http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/system.webServer/caching and whoila, you now have a complete set of reference material on the subject. Literally hundreds of pages of documentation are now freely available at http://www.iis.net/ConfigReference/ and super easy to access.

Each topic has a quick summary of what the feature is, how to install the feature as well as a quick “how-to” article (with pictures) on locating and using the feature inside IIS Manager. Each feature is carefully documented with comprehensive information on the configuration section behind each feature including information on each attribute, it’s type and default value as well as sample configuration. And perhaps best of all, every topic also has sample code for how to use the feature from AppCmd.exe, C#, VB.NET, JavaScript and VBScript! No more scavenging the forums or live search for sample code!

This reference guide could not have happened without a lot of hard work by many, especially Robert McMurray and Pete Harris (the mysterious man behind the iis.net site). Many thanks to them, we hope you enjoy this new section on our community site!

How to Run Windows & IIS in the Cloud on Amazon EC2 (in 15 mins)

bills — Wed, 14 Jan 2009 00:59:00 GMT

Choices abound for those looking for a place to run Web applications on Windows. The purpose of this blog post is to show a quick walkthrough of how to setup your first Windows computer in the cloud on Amazon EC2. If you’re already familiar with hosting and the cloud, skip the next few paragraphs.

The traditional approach is to use a Windows hosting provider, like DiscountASP.NET, MaximumASP.com, CrystalTech.com, etc. These long-time Windows hosting providers offer a flat monthly fee for shared (Web site) and dedicated server (full server) offerings ranging from a few dollars a month to a few hundred dollars a month. This works great for anyone who wants to set up everything from a simple family or community Web site to a small business or low traffic corporate site that can run on one server. If your site really takes off, and you want to scale it out onto many servers, you can of course pay for additional servers, and for the consulting services of your hoster to setup load balancing and more advanced network topologies. Some Windows hosters will even help you with the management of your new Web farm, which ends up being a complex set of gymnastics to backup your data , balance traffic, and deploy and manage your Web site’s content and code across a set of distributed servers. The cost and complexity of running a Web site on more than one server goes up pretty quickly. And if the traffic to your site grows and shrinks based on events related to your business, you are usually stuck with the high cost of the number of servers required to host your peak load.

New to the game are “cloud hosting” services, including Microsoft’s own Windows Azure (currently available for free in beta form), Mosso’s Cloud Sites, and Amazon’s Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). These cloud computing offerings differ from traditional hosting in several ways. First, they offer a more ‘elastic’ capacity model that can grow and shrink on demand. You tell your hosting provider how much capacity you need, and they automatically ramp up or down the number of servers to meet the demand. The cost of the service is usually based on usage (like your electricity bill – which is why some often refer to this cloud computing as ‘utility computing’). Microsoft, Mosso and Amazon all do this in different ways, and offer a variety of capabilities and features that are unique to each. In some future post I may take the time to review the pros and cons of each, but for now you’ll want to read up on them yourself and decide which is the best for you.

The purpose of this post is to provide a quick walkthrough of how to setup your own EC2 account and run Windows and IIS in about 15 mins. Amazon’s approach to cloud computing will be familiar to anyone who is already running Windows Server themselves, as it essentially offers Administrative access to virtual server instances running on Amazon’s infrastructure. Once you’ve created your first instance of Windows server in EC2, you can log on to your Amazon-based Windows Server via Remote Desktop and install software and manage the server the same way you would if it was running in your home or office. Amazon just released their EC2 Web Console, which makes deploying new instances of Windows Server, and connecting to them, very easy.

How to setup an Amazon EC2 account and launch your first Windows computer in the cloud

Step 1) get a free AWS account. Navigate to http://aws.amazon.com/ Unfortunately, I found a bug in IE7 that prevents some of the console from working properly, so you’ll want to use IE6 or Firefox. If you don’t have an AWS account, click the “Sign up Now” button. If you already have an account, go to Step #6.

Step 2) enter your email address and password, and click “sign in using our secure server”

Step 3) Enter your full name, and your password

Step 4) Enter your contact information, read and accept the license agreement by checking the checkbox at the bottom of the screen.

Step 5) Choose “Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud”

Step 6) Click the “Sign up for Amazon EC2” button

Step 7) Review the current pricing. Note to run a Windows Server the cost ranges from $0.125 to $1.20 per instance hour (and more if you include SQL Server). At the bottom of the page, enter your credit card information and click submit.

Step 8) Enter a new address for your billing information, or select the existing address if it is the same.

Step 9) Click the “Complete Sign Up” button at the top of the page to begin.

Step 10) You’ll need a certificate to authenticate with Amazon. If you already have one, click “Upload your…”, otherwise, click “Create a New X.509 Certificate”.

Step 11) Click Yes to generate your certificate

Step 12) Download your private key and certificate files. Keep them in a safe place that is protected from other users, and back them up! When you’re done, click the “AWS Management Console” link on the left.

Step 13) Click the “Amazon EC2” tab. You may need to sign in again.

Step 14) To create a new instance of Windows, click the “Launch Instances” button.

Step 15) There are several pre-built images of Windows available. If you want one with IIS, SQL Express, and ASP.NET pre-installed, choose the first one.

Step 16) You’ll need a key pair in order to securely connect to your instance. Click the “Create & Download your Key Pair” button (note IE7 beta doesn’t like this step)

Step 17) Enter a security group name and description, and click “Continue”. Security groups are the way you configure policy for your Web server. For instance, you can open and close ports on a security group. I created a Webserver security group.

Step 18) Enter the number of instances (virtual machines) you want to create. For testing, I enter (1). I also leave it to “Small” instance type. Select your key pair name and select the security groups you want to associate this instance with (for applying policy, like firewall ports).

Step 19) Amazon will now launch your instance. Click on the “view instances” link.

Step 20) Note the instance is in the “starting” status. Wait 3-5 mins for the instance to be created and to boot.

Notice the “status” has changed to “running”. Click on the instance and choose “password”.

Step 21) you’ll want to remote desktop into your instance, which means you need the Administrative password. By default, Amazon encrypts this password. It takes a few minutes to generate and encrypt it.

Once it is encrypted you’ll be able to click the “password” button again and see the screen below. Open the keypair file you generated in Step 16 and copy + paste it into the private key field below.

Step 22) Write down (or copy into the clipboard) the decrypted password shown. Close the dialog.

Step 23) Click on the “Connect” button and note that port 3389 is not currently opened, which is the port that remote desktop needs. We’ll need to click on “security groups” in order to open it.

Step 24) Click on the security group you created in step 17) and choose “RDP” from the list of protocols below, then click “Save”

Step 25) Now click “Instances” and click the “connect” button for your instance. Note you can download a shortcut file using the link provided, which makes it easy to connect (just double click the file that downloads).

Step 26) Otherwise, fire up Remote Desktop and enter the computer name for your Amazon EC2 instance. Log in as Administrator using the password provided.

Step 27) The remote computer has an automatically generated certificate that is not automatically identified. Click “View Certificate”

Step 28) To install the certificate to your computer, click “install certificate” and follow the wizard.

Step 29) you should now be connected. Enter your Admin credentials from Step 22.

Step 30) Open up IIS Manager and start creating your Web site!

Step 31) You should also visit http://microsoft.com/web/channel/products/WebPlatformInstaller.aspx and install the Microsoft Web PI tool, which helps you get all the latest extensions and update in one place.

You’ll notice that Amazon currently only has Windows 2003 available, which means that it isn’t yet possibly to run IIS7! If you’re like me, this is a real bummer as IIS7 has so many cool new features. Please send Amazon a note letting them know you would like to see Windows 2008 available on EC2!

How to get MySQL and PHPMyAdmin working with IIS7 and Windows 2008

bills — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 16:56:18 GMT

Almost every popular PHP app that you may want to run on IIS7 requires MySQL. I just ran across a couple of really great articles which provide step by step instructions for how to get MySQL and PHPMyAdmin running.

First, learn how to get MySQL going on Windows 2008 by reading this tutorial: Install MySQL on IIS7 Server 2008

PHPMyAdmin, for those who haven’t used it before, is a handy PHP app that lets you do database administration via your Web browser. Handy for getting a database or user created, running ad hoc queries, and so forth. Learn how to install it by reading this tutorial: Install PHPMyAdmin on IIS7 and Server 2008

The TrainSignalTraining.com guys have a lot of really detailed, step-by-step tutorials on IIS7 for a variety of topics that are free and definitely work checking out.

How to Script / Automate IIS7 Configuration (without writing code)

bills — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 00:58:00 GMT

I hear this question a lot in the http://forums.iis.net/, and thanks to Carlos and team's rocking Configuration Editor, figuring this out on your own is a breeze. Here is how you can generate code for ANY IIS7 configuration change, without writing a line yourself.

1) download the IIS7 Administration Pack. What, you don't have it already? You're really missing out on some fantastic tools, including the Configuration Editor. Learn more about the admin pack here http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/401/using-the-administration-pack/ You can download x86 and x64 from http://www.iis.net/downloads.

2) open "IIS Manager" and click on the "Configuration Editor" feature under the "Management" category:

3) Find the configuration section(s) you want to edit using the drop-down combo box, in this case isapiFilters:

4) use the configuration editor to make your change. In this case, I'm editing a collection, which pops up a collection editor where I can add items to the isapiFilter list by clicking 'add' in the task pane.

5) once you're done making any configuration updates, click on the 'Generate Script' task in the main Config Editor window:

6) the script generator creates three ways of automating the configuration change you just made C#, JavaScript (again the AHAdmin COM interface) and AppCmd.exe

7) Copy and Paste these changes into your own script / code and whoila, you've got sample code for making any IIS7 configuration change.

You may also want to read up on the IIS7 Administration APIs. You can find a lot more information here:

Using Scripts to Automate Management

Managing IIS with the IIS 7.0 PowerShell Provider

How to add mime types with IIS7 Web.config

bills — Tue, 25 Mar 2008 14:27:48 GMT

Ever wanted to add a custom mime type to your Web server? I ran into this issue the other day when I tried to serve up .mp4 files from my Web server and duh, I got this error:

404.3 error - mime type missing!

Why does IIS block requests for unknown mime types? Well, unlike some web servers, we believe it is irresponsible to serve out random content. After all, did you really intend to serve up that .mdb (access database), .passwd (password), .inc (source include) or other random files that may have landed in your web content directory? We really don't know, so we error on the safe side and block all unknown extensions by default from being served. To make it easy to troubleshoot, we return this special error - coded 404.3.

Thankfully, adding mime types is easier than ever thanks to the all-new distributed configuration option, which allows for IIS7 configuration to be stored in web.config files, along with asp.net configuration, to be deployed with your content. This makes transferring IIS7 configuration from your Vista PC to your hosted server as easy as copying files! Read more about this in the Delegating Configuration section of http://learn.IIS.net

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to add mime types to your Web server. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content. Since the <staticContent> section is delegated by default, the configuration snippets below should 'just work' on all IIS7 Web sites.

Scenario: Let's say I want serve up some h264 video and need to add the .mp4 and .m4v file types to IIS7? It's as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <staticContent>
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".mp4" mimeType="video/mp4" />
            <mimeMap fileExtension=".m4v" mimeType="video/m4v" />
     </staticContent>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Scenario 2: Let's say I want to add Silverlight-related mime types to my site/application? See this article for all the gory details, but it is as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <staticContent>
     <mimeMap fileExtension=".xaml" mimeType="application/xaml+xml" />
     <mimeMap fileExtension=".xap" mimeType="application/x-silverlight-app" />
     <mimeMap fileExtension=".xbap" mimeType="application/x-ms-xbap" />
     </staticContent>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Also, if you'd like a fancy UI to help you to manage mime types, IIS Manager provides a nice tool based approach. Just click on the 'mime types' feature:

and then click 'add' on the Actions pane:

Whoila!

How to enable directory browsing with IIS7 web.config

bills — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 18:32:00 GMT

IIS7 includes an all-new distributed configuration option, which allows for IIS7 configuration to be stored in web.config files, along with asp.net configuration, to be deployed with your content. This makes transferring IIS7 configuration from your Vista PC to your hosted server as easy as copying files! Read more about this in the Delegating Configuration section of http://learn.IIS.net

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to enable directory browsing for your Web site or a directory on your site. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content.

Scenario: Let's say I want to enable directory browsing for a special directory on my site, how do I enable that? It's as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
  <location path="special_directory_name_here">
   <system.webServer>
    <directoryBrowse enabled="true" />
   </system.webServer>
  </location>
</configuration>

Note you will need to change the location path to equal the directory name you want to enable directory browsing for. If you want to enable it for the entire site, just remove the entire <location> and </location> tags (which tell IIS7 to scope the configuration changes to just the path specified). Enjoy!

PS:

Hi Bill I read your blog about "How to enable directory browsing with IIS7 web.config" (http://blogs.iis.net/bills/archive/2008/03/24/how-to-enable-directory-browsing-with-iis7-web-config.aspx#comments) Chris added a comment that he likes to know if it's possible to hide files from being displayed in the directory list. It's correct that you can't configure this behavior through web.config, but it works if you just set the file as "hidden" on the filesystem. I'm writing you because i'm not registered, so maybe you could add this information on the blog entry or in the comments.Would be nice because i didn't find this information anywhere, I figured it out by myself. RegardsJens

How to (un)block directories with IIS7 web.config

bills — Sun, 23 Mar 2008 18:44:37 GMT

IIS7 also includes a new request filtering feature that protects your Web site by filtering requests. IIS7 looks out for well known attacks and automatically rejects them. You can tell IIS7 about special patterns you want to look out for, and you can block access to certain parts of your site, by simply adding new configuration to your Web.config file. For more information on the request filtering feature, visit the http://learn.iis.net/page.aspx/143/how-to-use-request-filtering/ article.

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to block or unblock sections of your site from being accessed. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content.

By default, IIS7 blocks access to a few well-known special directories, including "bin", "App_Code", "App_Data" and so forth. This is because these directories often contain special code or data that is normally never accessed directly from the Web. You may want to protect other directories on your site from being accessed, for example your "log" directory or "database" directory. Or you may be using an application, like Lightroom, which actually requires access to one of the previous blocked directories like "bin". You can easily block or unblock access to directories by adding a bit of configuration to your web.config file.

Scenario: Let's say I want to block the "log" directory from being accessed on my site? It's as easy as:

1) create (or edit) the web.config file in your site's home directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
    <system.webServer>
        <security>
            <requestFiltering>
                <hiddenSegments>
                    <add segment="log" />
                </hiddenSegments>
            </requestFiltering>
        </security>
    </system.webServer>
</configuration>

Note: if you instead want to unblock a directory like "bin", to enable applications like Lightroom to work with IIS7, the configuration required is exactly the same as above, except for the <add segment="log"/> directive. Change it to be <remove segment="bin" /> and IIS7 will allow access to "bin" directories on your site (Careful: if you do this on an ASP.NET site you may be unintentionally allowing access to assemblies that are normally protected)

Also, if you'd like a fancy UI to help you in managing your request filtering rules, check out the new IIS7 Admin Pack which just shipped and includes a new UI feature which makes managing this feature easy!

How to add a default document with IIS7 web.config

bills — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 12:40:00 GMT

IIS7 includes an all-new distributed configuration option, which allows for IIS7 configuration to be stored in web.config files, along with asp.net configuration, to be deployed with your content. This makes transferring IIS7 configuration from your development box to your hosted server as easy as file copy! Read more about this in the Delegating Configuration section of http://learn.IIS.net

In this post, I'll show how easy it is to add or change a default document for your Web site. This method will work on any IIS7 web server, and it will be ignored on all non-IIS7 web servers, so it should be safe to do no matter the type of application or content.

Scenario: Let's say I want to add index.php as the default document for the new whiz-bang PHP application I just downloaded. IIS doesn't recognize index.php as a default document, so how do I enable that? It's as easy as:

1) create a web.config file in your application directory

2) edit it as follows:

<configuration>
   <system.webServer>
    <defaultDocument>
        <files>
            <add value="index.php" />
        </files>
    </defaultDocument>
   </system.webServer>
</configuration>

How does this work? IIS7 monitors web directories for the web.config file, and will notice any time a file with this name is created or changed. It reads the configuration in the file and merges it with any parent or global configuration set at higher levels (at a site or server level). In this case, we're telling IIS to add the "index.php" value to the list of default documents. You can also remove an individual entry in the defaultDocument list by doing this:

        
<files>             
    <remove value="index.php" />         
</files>

Or you can clear all of the inherited values in the defaultDocument list first by doing this:

IIS7 distributed configuration is very powerful! Read more on http://learn.iis.net.